The Kir'Ithil Pirates
by Telethryl
Summary: The Kir'Ithil pirates have quite the reputation, and for good reason. When bounty hunter Frederick T Vandimoor attempts to bring in the head of their captain, he bites off a little more than he can chew. These characters do not actually exist in One Piece.


**I do not own One Piece.**

**The Kir'Ithil Pirates and Frederick are mine, however.**

**The Kir'Ithil Pirates**

**Chapter 1: Frederick T. Vandimoor**

Frederick T. Vandimoor was a bounty hunter. Most of the time he considered himself very skilled and he enjoyed his job very much. With his sleek long boat beneath him, he could sneak up on a pirate ship and fight his way through the underlings who seemed to come out of the woodwork, then take down the captain.

And it paid well.

As far back as Frederick could remember, he had always been fascinated with the art of fighting. Back when he lived in Roguetown in the East Blue he had gone to as many masters of different weapons and styles as he could. There were a lot of those masters in the Beginning of the End, or so his hometown was called by its many travelers.

Sometimes he missed the old days, he thought as he dragged Captain Ludwik's body into the marine base with a smile on his face. Then again, sometimes he didn't. And when he walked away from the marine base towards the pub with his pockets stuffed with an extra forty million berries, he decided he was lying if he said he missed it.

Frederick sat along the counter at the old pub in town and ordered himself a nice, large mug of beer. No, he decided, he really didn't miss it. As he drank he flipped through the many wanted posters he always carried with him in his backpack. The bounties were all over fifty million and under two-hundred million, but not for lack of confidence in his abilities. The larger bounty pirates simply preferred to reside in the very depths of the Grand Line, somewhere out in the sea where One Piece was located.

"…practically a three-hundred million Beli bounty. Imagine what she would have had to do to get that kind of price on her head."

The words broke through Frederick's thoughts and he turned to regard the man who had spoken. The man looked like a common villager and he was sitting at a table with another man. They appeared to be sharing a drink. The bounty hunter found himself listening in to their conversation.

"No kidding," his friend was saying. "Too bad we didn't get to see her. Have you seen the wanted poster?" He let out a low whistle.

The first man nodded. "Yeah, but can you imagine getting that money?"

"Like you could ever take down a pirate with a price like that." His voice was practically dripping with confidence.

"Excuse me," Fredrick butted in. They looked to him, the first with blank confusion and the friend with skeptical appraisal. "You were talking about a pirate just now, correct?"

The skeptical man turned back to his drink, clearly no longer interested. The other man's confusion seemed to clear up. "Yeah. You're a bounty hunter, then?"

Frederick saw no reason to lie. "Yes."

"It was some woman the marines are calling 'Devil Hunter'. You could probably find one of her wanted posters somewhere around here; the marines put them up right before her crew arrived." He went back to his drink like his friend. "I wouldn't suggest it though, not with the price on her head."

As if to prove the point, the bartender, who seemed to have been listening in, pulled a piece of paper out from under the bar and slapped it down next to Frederick's mug. "Good luck with your job, boy," The bartender walked away chuckling quietly.

The two men at the table resumed talking in much quieter tones, probably talking about him. He ignored them and looked at the paper. The picture was of a woman from just below the waist and up, and she appeared to be standing on a dock next to a decent sized ship. Her left hand was resting on the hilt of a sword on the same hip. She was wearing almost nothing in the shirt region and had a large jacket draped over her shoulders. Her smirk was cocky as hell.

"Two-hundred and seventy-nine million berries." He lifted his mug and took a long drink. "Damn. Well, shouldn't be too terribly difficult." He placed it on top of the posters he already had.

Now, Frederick was no fool. The marines didn't issue a bounty like that for nothing. There would be some form of skill behind the price, he knew. So as he prepared for his next voyage he ran the different approaches he could use through his head. Given the picture and the obvious cockiness nature of the pirate, he assumed that she would have a good number of minions. The cocky ones always gathered a weak crowd to them. He was expecting somewhere between thirty and sixty. The best way to get the job done, it seemed, would be a sneak attack. This thought didn't sit well with him. He preferred the fighting challenge, but since he hadn't heard of this woman before it didn't seem like such a good idea.

With all of his supplies and weapons packed into his longboat, he set off as the sky was just beginning to darken. Even if it had been a small ship, it couldn't have gotten very far in three days. His built-for-speed long boat would be able to catch it sometime within the night. His plan was to sneak aboard this ship (given it was still dark when he reached it) and scout out the pirates aboard. Then he would go to the captain's quarter's, assassinate the woman, and possibly fight his way through hordes of minions in order to escape. Maybe he would wake them so he could.

It was a few hours past midnight when he finally saw a ship closing in on the horizon. As he got closer he realized the ship had all-black sails. Even among pirate ship's this was rare beyond rare. The Jolly Roger flew proudly on the two small flags atop the masts as well as the two larger sails beneath the flags. It was a smirking skull with a blade and claw marks crossing beneath it. It was the right ship.

Frederick pulled his boat up beside the larger one and, with a quick scope of the deck, jumped aboard to tie it to the rail. With that taken care of, he turned examine the deck. It was like nothing he would have ever imagined in his wildest dreams, and he had some pretty weird dreams. He would have never expected any adult, let alone feared pirate, to allow this sort of thing.

The architecture was normal. To his right was a cabin that stretched the length width of the deck. A door and a porthole, to its right, were in the center of the cabin wall. It looked like the wall gave way to staircase leading to the deck above on the other side of the ship. To his left and forward was the main mast, with boards nailed to it for easy climbing access and a crow's nest sat at the very top. At the front of the boat the deck raised somewhere between five and eight feet higher than the deck Frederick was standing on, with a wide staircase in the middle to lead to the top. A door was to the left of the staircase.

But none of that was what was floored the bounty hunter. Strewn about the entirety of the deck were toys of all kinds. There were action figures, animal models, mini ships, a toy castle, army men, and squirt guns of all kinds. He could just barely make out the shape of a large sculpture partially hidden behind the mast. There were also toy balls of every kind. Kick balls, beach balls, ping pong balls, Tennis balls, and even paddle ball games. They would have been rolling into the water had the railing been made out of solid wood.

It blew Frederick's mind.

Faint footsteps drew his attention to the cabin and, with one last look at the chaos, he moved to the window to see who was there. The inside of the room was being barely lit by the five windows allowing moonlight to stream in. The light was so little that he could barely make anything out in detail. It looked like there was a door a few feet to the right of the left wall (from how he was looking) and between them something was raising from the ground at an angle. Someone was walking from that corner of the room over to the other side, where there appeared to be a large, curved pub bar. Behind the bar were two large shelves of bottles, the farther right one having its right side pressed against the wall, and in between the wall dipped back at curve. The curve was deep enough that he couldn't see into it.

The man went behind the bar and stopped at the first shelf, looking it over. He selected a rather large bottle from the middle and turned to go onto the deck. Frederick dropped to the ground and scuttled over to the stairs, hiding himself behind the wheel on the upper deck. Just as he got behind it the door below him opened and the person walked a few paces and stopped. This provided a view of his shoulders and up, revealing the man's very odd hair. It was split down the center in two colors, one dark and the other what looked like silver. His shaggy hair was just long enough at the back to be pulled into a stump of a rat tail, and he appeared to not being wearing a shirt. He also looked fairly well built.

He stood there for a second as if contemplating before looking straight up at the crow's nest. Frederick looked as well. There was nothing there. The man seemed to be thinking along the same lines and began to scale to the top one-handed. This revealed his state of dress and Frederick blanched. He was in only a pair of boxers.

As the man scaled the mast, he took the opportunity to climb down from his perch and go into the cabin. Just as he was about to shut the door quietly behind him, he heard a startled cry come from above him. He poked his head out and looked to the top of the mast, where the man was now standing on the outside of. He was using one arm to hold himself from plummeting back down, and using his other to help himself to a hearty swig from the bottle. The shape of someone's skull was now visible above the edge of the nest, looking wildly around.

Since it appeared that the cry had been from the new person waking up, he closed the door and looked around. Being inside didn't help him see anything new besides the thing sticking from the floor next to the door opposite him was a cellar-style double door. That and the regular door had a window in it. He glanced around before proceeding to the door for a peek inside.

The first thing he noticed was a large window that spanned maybe one-third to half of the back wall. Below the window sat an old-fashioned desk with an open book on it. On the floor to the left of the desk was a treasure chest piled so high with treasure it couldn't close anymore. On the wall behind the chest and to the left of the window was a wall tacked to the brim with papers. In the center he could make out a wooden sign reading 'Wall of Death'. Upon closer inspection to the surrounding papers he found them to be wanted posters of different pirates.

On the left wall there was a similar sign, though this one read 'Wall of Life'. The amount of posters on this wall was considerably less, with only around eight pictures. The floor was riddles with paper as well, some just scribbling while the others were more wanted posters. It made him wonder why there were so many posters. Against the right wall was a bed with the blankets pulled almost to the top, with the shape of a person underneath. White hair spilled out of the blankets and over the side of the bed. Above the bed hanging on a hook was a large jacket printed with the Jolly Roger of the ship.

'So this is the captain's quarters,' he mused silently, his eyes wandering back to the sleeping person. 'And that must be the captain.' Having learned all he could from the room he turned his attention to the double doors. With only slight hesitation he opened them and moved down onto the staircase below so he could close them behind him. As he closed the doors he heard two voices coming from the deck towards the cabin. He cursed when he heard them enter and went quickly down the stairs. There was a door with a small window directly across from the bottom of the stairs, and the hallway went right a few feet before curving back towards the front of the boat.

He glanced in the room to make sure no one was there before ducking in behind the door and crouching low. The double doors opened again and he heard the two voices coming down the stairs. The one speaking sounded feminine, and one of the footsteps sounded heavier than the other, as if the person was carrying something.

"…taken watch tonight. I've been tired all day," the woman was saying. They were right outside the door now.

"You should have told Sai that. Zanafir would have taken watch instead."

Frederick risked a look out the window and saw the two's backs right in front of him. If he came looked a second earlier… he didn't really want to think about that awkward situation. The woman was wearing a vest with striped short sleeves under in, and puffy pants. He felt his face reddening at the sight of the smirking Jolly Roger sewn onto the ass of her pants, as well as a hole cut above the picture to allow a fluffy tail to poke through. Her dark hair was up in a bandana and something was lying down with the hair. She appeared to be carrying some sort of small dog.

"Should of," she agreed readily, "but I didn't."

They disappeared around the corner and after about a minute or so he heard two doors opening and one door closing. Now he looked around the room he was in. It was a food storage room. One end of the room was piled high with crates and sacks while the other was neater and had shelves lining the wall. On top of the closest crate was a note that read: 'Capn's, don't touch'. There was a little bit of blood on the corner that was tacked. He hesitantly lifted the lid and found it to be stuffed to the brim with chocolate.

He went back over to the window and saw a pole sticking around the corner. Without even thinking about it he dropped to the floor. A shadow passed the door and started to get smaller, telling Frederick it was a person going upstairs. He raised himself up just enough to see. The person was incredibly hard to make out on the dark stairwell. All Frederick would tell that the person was lean and was carrying a spear on his shoulder. They pushed open the door turned to close it carefully.

It seemed as though the person didn't see Frederick peering through the window. He waited until the door to the deck shut before coming out of hiding. There were three doors that he could see around the corner of the hallway, and the hallway curved to the side at the end hiding whatever was down there from view. He proceeded to the first door on the left and looked through the small window. The room was perfectly square, and very large. A large square of the center of the room indented into the floor and was stuffed with colorful balls.

'They have… a ball pit?' He wondered. Around the outside of the room were many crates filled with more toys. 'It's a playroom. Why would pirates have a playroom?' Shaking his head at the insanity of it, he moved to the next room on the left of the hall. It also had a window in the door, and looked to be a miscellaneous supply room. There were mops, buckets, and stacks of blankets. The door across the hall did not have a window, and judging it was safe enough to open, revealed itself to be a bathroom. They actually had a bathtub in it that looked like it was used on a semi-regular basis. The contents of the room looked like that of an ordinary house.

He shut the door and proceeded around the curve of the hall. There were two doors on the right side of the hallway and a staircase leading down at the end. The door closer to him had a dim light shining out of the bottom of it and he could hear someone murmuring inside. Neither door had a window and he assumed them to be barracks. The stairway he also assumed led to barracks.

Frederick wandered his way back up to the kitchen. There was still no one inside, so he looked out the porthole. A man was practicing fighting with a spear on the deck. His back was to Frederick, so he could examine him without being seen. The reason he had not been able to see the man clearly on the stairwell had been due to the color of his clothes and hair. He was wearing a short sleeved black shirt with a collar and blue jeans. His long black hair was pulled into a ponytail at the base of his neck and flowed down to the middle of his back, his physique was lean yet muscular. Frederick felt like he had seen this man before.

A loud crashing noise forced his attention to the captain's quarters. Below him he heard the sounds of doors opening and people heading for the kitchen. Without many options, he dove behind the bar and stayed as quiet as possible.

The double doors opened and people spilled into the room, along with the man who had been outside. "What happened?" He heard a sleepy female voice ask. It didn't seem to be the same woman he had seen earlier.

Everyone was quiet. You could have heard a pin drop. Then, "It seems our Captain has had a rude awakening." The voice was masculine, no doubt about it, but not very deep in tone. A door opened and it sounded like he walked into the room. "Are you alright, Sai?"

Said female let out a whine. "That hurt!" Frederick sweatdropped. This was a three-hundred million bounty pirate?

Two pairs of footsteps entered the room after a minute. "Now that we're up…" A man trailed off, hinting at something. It sounded like the man Frederick had seen on the deck earlier. "Food!" More voices joined in as he chanted for food.

"I don't cook 'till it's light," came the very drunk response. Everyone let out a collective 'aw!'.

"Then it's dodge ball time." It sounded like the captain. There were no complaints. Instead, there was a rush to get out to the deck. Finally the door closed behind them all and Frederick chanced a glance into the room. No one was there. He went back to the porthole.

Someone had drawn a line with chalk perpendicular to the door and there were six people on deck playing dodge ball. Apparently, they had been serious. Three women were on the right side of the deck and three men were on the left. They were pelting each other with whatever ball they could get their hands on, be it a beach ball or ping pong ball. A small dog was bounding around between the two sides, snapping happily at the flying balls, some of which were going clear over the railing and into the ocean.

Frederick was starting to recognize every last one of the people, now that he could look at them properly. The man he had seen earlier on deck with the split hair was a man named Evander Goksek, wanted for one-hundred and thirty million berries. He was also wearing pants now. One of the women looked almost exactly like him, though much smaller built and her hair colors were on the opposite sides. Her name was Eliana Goksek, twin to the before mentioned man and holding a bounty identical. Captured together they were worth an extra ten million.

The man with the top-hat and dress suit went by the name of 'Zombie' Balthazar, and as he saw an arm flying across the deck he realized the title wasn't lying. He was worth a whopping two-hundred million. The woman with the puffy pants he had seen earlier was called Xuu Haneaoi, worth one-hundred and seventy-five million. Rumor had it that she could get pretty beastly in a battle. The little dog was her pet, 'Jelly Dog' Dougan, worth twenty berries.

And the man Frederick had seen training with a spear was now visible from the front. He had the Jolly Roger tattooed under his right eye. This man was named Zanafir Regent, coming in second place for highest bounty on the crew at two-hundred and thirty-five million.

Frederick added it up, and came to three startling conclusions: 1) the crew had a collective bounty of over one-billion berries. 2) There were only six of them. And 3) they were playing dodge ball.

As he watched, Captain Sai and Evander got into an argument. Sai grabbed a squirt gun from the ground and soaked his with it. He frowned and pulled a paddleball game, bouncing it menacingly at her. They scuffled for a couple of minutes before the rest of the crew joined the fight, all grabbing squirt guns and starting a war. Evander abandoned his weapon for one similar to that of his crew mates.

Frederick felt his mind shutting down. He stepped out onto the deck. He didn't know what else to do. "What the _hell _is going on here?"

Zanafir immediately threw the toy behind him, his eyes narrowing dangerously on the new face. He pulled the spear from his back, tensing to attack. He was the only one who reached for the weapons they were all carrying on them quite visibly. Sai held an arm out, stopping him. Her face was curious. "And what do we have here, hmm?"

Suddenly Frederick felt uneasy. Her mood had changed from childish to coolly serious, with major amusement. "Frederick T. Vandimoor; I'm a bounty hunter. I came here expecting maybe thirty or more weaklings like usual, and now… I don't even know. What's going on?"

"We're having fun," she replied simply. "How much fun do _you_ have on a daily basis?"

"A lot, actually. Do you know the fun of fighting-?"

"What's your middle name?" Sai interrupted.

Frederick froze in the middle of his sentence, digesting the question. "I- what?"

Her crew snickered, save for Zanafir who was still ready to attack. "Nothing, nothing." She waved her hand in dismissal. "Continue."

He looked at her as if she were crazy. She might have been. "Have you ever fought your way through dozens of pirates?"

She smiled knowingly. "Of course. It's quite fun. Fighting a marine base is quite similar, actually." Her left hand rested on the sheathed rapier that hung from the same waist. Her thumb pushed the blade out a little more than an inch. "I'm assuming you're here to fight," she began calmly. "Since you're capable of having a conversation before attacking, I'll let you decide. Would you prefer I kill you or that we make it a group effort?"

The crew seemed to take this as a cue to pull their weapons out. Evander pulled two axes from his belt while his sister dropped the knife of her tetsugin into her hand. Balthazar took a step forward and put his fists up in front of him while Xuu stepped behind the others and pulled something out of her pocket.

"Uh…" Frederick looked to the billion Beli fighters. The answer seemed obvious to him. "Just you."

She nodded and drew her sword with her right hand, pointing it at him. "Then come and get me, Freddy." He pulled a long sword and a bastard sword from his back and got into a fighting stance, waiting for her to attack. She was still smiling. "You'll have to attack me, boyo."

"I don't like to attack first."

She raised an eyebrow, smirking. "You don't have a choice. Attack or my nakama will."

He ran at the captain, lunging his long sword forward to slice her. She sidestepped and tapped her rapier on top of it, knocking it down to the deck. He used his other sword to go at her again, but she kicked her foot up, connecting with his frank 'n beans and jumped back, landing in a fencing stance. He nearly toppled, holding his jewels and pulling out an axe. He attacked her again, with her merely dodging.

'She's not even attacking,' he mentally growled.

But she was in his face then, blocking his axe with her sword and Frederick felt something sharp pierce into his side. It was a dagger! He didn't know where it came from, but she was holding it in her free hand and had it stabbed into his stomach. She rolled backwards when he swiped his axe at her and as she was standing he threw one of his own daggers at her.

Sai dodged, but it cut into her cheek as it sailed past her. He threw another at her then, and she tuck and rolled to the side, tossing her own with ease at his face. His eyes widened in surprise and he blocked just in time with his axe.

She straightened herself up, holding her sword non-threatening with her arms hanging at her sides. "Interesting. You're quite talented."

"Thank you?" It came out as more of a question than anything else.

She grabbed a tennis ball from the floor and tossed it at him. He used his axe to bounce it back at her. A grin spread across her face and she used her rapier to send it back to him. The odd game of tennis continued as they spoke.

"You're the first bounty hunter to play tennis with me," Sai informed him.

"I'm not surprised," Frederick replied. "No pirate has ever tried to do anything like this before. When I first got here I thought your crew was made of balls."

Her grin turned taunting. "Oh, it is." He looked to her in confusion as she tossed something white to him, discreetly wiping her hand on her pants. He caught it and examined the object, his face contorting. "Those are his balls," she thrust a thumb over her shoulder at Balthazar. "He's a zombie. He can detach 'em."

Frederick let out a strangled cry and dropped the balls. Balthazar went forward and grabbed them, stuffing his hand down his pants to readjust. Sai and her crew, with the exception of Zanafir, were all holding their sides and cracking up.

"Why?!"

Sai shrugged, still laughing. "Because I can." She sheathed her sword and crossed her arms, her face turning serious. "I'm sure you realize by now that you have two options."

Zanafir turned to his captain and frowned. "You can't be serious."

"And you can't have been oblivious to his presence," she replied evenly without looking at him.

"I saw him twice." The stoic man consented. "But this is not a good idea."

Sai completely ignored him. "Die," she said to Frederick, "or join my crew."

Frederick T. Vandimoor was a bounty hunter. Most of the time he considered himself very skilled and he enjoyed his job very much. With his sleek long boat beneath him, he could sneak up on a pirate ship and fight his way through the underlings who seemed to come out of the woodwork, then take down the captain.

And it paid well.

He had everything going in his favor. Strength, skill, and a reputation. That is, until he heard of the pirates that stood before him now. They were completely different than any other pirates he had ever attacked. They were powerful, much more powerful than he had anticipated.

Captain Sai grinned. "Welcome to the crew."

Frederick T. Vandimoor was a pirate. And as he looked into the faces of his new crewmates, he didn't complain. At least it would be interesting.

* * *

_Hello all._

_Chapter 1 introduces the crew in its entirety. The rest will show the recruitment of crew, starting from the beginning with their captain. I hope this story proves entertaining._


End file.
